This match with Ridgeway was a small friendly affair where the entry money went towards prizes entirely and no pools money. I was pleased to be back out, but my bait was a bit pongy as it was what I had bought last week! Still I was expecting, rather hoping, that it would be a chub match on the feeder so smelly bait is not a problem.
I got drawn on the peg below the high wall, so not such a long walk and my new 4 wheel Preston shuttle got me there in no time.
It’s an easy peg to get in to but it’s not been great in the winter leagues. It was bombing through fast and boily till halfway. After this the river was smoother and a little slower. I did think it was chub or bust.
I had 2 pints of casters, 1/2 pint dead red maggots, dendra’s, lobworms and a few live maggots. It meant I was going win an open ended feeder approach, normally I’d of gone on a maggot feeder, but as I said I was using last weeks bait which was for a flooded river. It seemed I needed a very heavy weight to hold 3/4 across the river of 60g. A size 12 N60 to 0.17 powerline completed the set up.
We started at 10am and I had a few 2 minute casts to get a bit of bait in, no bites on a bunch of maggots so tried double dendra and at 10:20 I had my first drop back bite and landed a 12oz chublet. It was 25 minutes later that I had my next bite this time on half a lobworm, a very similar size chublet. After this I started to get a bit of a problem with a snag, I didn’t get a bite for an hour but I reeled in once with no bait left. Then at about 11:30 whilst on the phone to Glenn Bailey I had a bite that banged the tip but no drop back. I thought that was odd but when I picked up the rod I was snagged up, the feeder was stuck. Eventually I got it free and saw the hook was opened out, I reckon the chub hooked itself but as the feeder was stuck it buggered the hook.
Not long after I lost a hook in the snag, and I realised I needed to fish a different spot. I don’t like doing this but had no choice, so I came shorter to just past middle. This was better though still an odd snag but not bad ones. It took me till about 1pm to get my next bite, a brilliant drop back with tip straight and slack line…. But no fish on the hook 🙈. The lobworm was ripped to pieces and I was gutted to not have hooked the fish. Worse was to follow when another bite was missed. I changed the feeder to a lighter 50g size and it would just about hold on this shorter line. But I missed another big drop back WTF was going on I thought. I then had another chublet in the net which was welcome. After this fish and the previous quick flurry of bites I had no signs again.
At 2:15 another bite came and this was on and I had to give line initially, it was a powerful fish but it didn’t find any snags and I got it in the net, definitely over 4lb. Next cast another bite and a 8oz chublet. Sadly that was to be the last action of the match.
As it didn’t take me long to pack away I wandered upstream to meet the scales. Craig Pinker was top weight with 11lb made up of 3 nice chub and a 1lb of bits, he was on the last but one peg in the little ashtip which is one of the best chub pegs at the crane this year. However, his weight was only going to be good enough for 2nd as Ali Gibbs had a catch of a lifetime on the Avon. He was on the last peg in the first field which in normal conditions is left out. Today it had a nice slack and some perch decided to reside in it. Ali had 3 perch and a small chub on a maggot feeder, then he added 4 more perch on a lobworm on a float. 7 perch and a chub doesn’t sound amazing I know, but they weighed 18lb 12oz and the biggest perch was 3lb exactly! What an awesome catch, well done Ali.
My 5 fish weighed 7lb 8oz and so the big chub had to be 4 1/2lb we thought. My weight was enough to get me third and I picked up a nice set of 4 bottles of wine. Many thanks to Steve Dumbleton for running this match and getting a great array of prizes.
I was glad to get back in the warm as I had the wind in my face all day and I did start feeling a bit chilly as the sun went behind the clouds late on. Not sure what is happening on the fishing front next weekend we will see.
